About Brent Green

About Brent GreenThis blog is about Baby Boomers and our impact on business, society, and culture, today and in the future.
Here I explore many themes relevant to those of us on a thoughtful journey to reinvent the future of aging. I am a consultant and author of six books, including "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions."
I present workshops and give keynote speeches about the intersection of the Boomer generation, business, aging, and societal transformations.
My company, Brent Green & Associates, Inc., is an internationally award-winning firm specializing in building brands and forming successful commercial relationships with Boomers through the unique power of generational marketing. Marketing to Boomers
I welcome your comments and questions here. This blog is a continuing conversation that began in June 2005, and I'll appreciate hearing from you.

Brent Green & Associates is a leading marketing company with specialized expertise in selling products and services to the Boomer male market, comprised of over 35 million U.S. adults. Click here to visit our website.

Business Experts

Lee EisenbergLee Eisenberg is the author of "The Number," a title metaphorically representing the amount of resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by visionary advice from the former Editor-in-Chief of "Esquire Magazine," Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living. This is an important resource for companies and advisors helping Boomers prepare for their post-career lives.

Kim WalkerKim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in Asia Pacific, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. His newest venture is SILVER, the only marketing and business consultancy focused on the 50+ market in Asia Pacific. He has been a business trends and market identifier who had launched three pioneer-status businesses to exploit opportunities unveiled by his observations.

Hiroyuki MurataHiroyuki Murata (Hiro) is a well-known expert on the 50+ market and an opinion leader on aging issues in Japan and internationally. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, Murata introduced Curves, the world’s largest fitness chain for women, to Japan and helped make it a successful business. He is also responsible for bringing the first college-linked retirement community to Japan, which opened in Kobe in August 2008.
Hiro is the author of several books, including "The Business of Aging: 10 Successful Strategies for a Diverse Market" and "Seven Paradigm Shifts in Thinking about the Business of Aging." They have been described as “must read books” by more than 30 leading publications including Nikkei, Nikkei Business, Yomiuri, and Japan Industry News. His most recent book, "Retirement Moratorium: What Will the Not-Retired Boomers Change?" was published in August 2007 by Nikkei Publishing.
Hiro serves as President of The Social Development Research Center, Tokyo, a think-tank overseen by METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology, and Industry) as well as Board members and Advisors to various Japanese private companies. He also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kansai University and as a member of Advisory Boards of The World Demographic Association (Switzerland) and ThirdAge, Inc. (U.S.).

January 01, 2011

An Online Revolution: Baby Boomers and Social Networking - Approaching Age 65 and Beyond, Changing the World

Note to Readers:

Martin Diano, founder of Boomer Authority Association, invited several practitioners of Boomer and senior marketing to contribute chapters to an e-book focused on social networking and online marketing. As proposed, this eGuidebook would be entitled: BoomerStrataGEMS™ ── Tools, Technologies & Techniques. It would become “an eGuidebook and resource listing for using social media and digital technology to engage with Baby Boomers and seniors.”

He shared an early draft with us, which I found to be rich with strategies and techniques to reach the 50+ consumer online. I applied some of the book's recommendations immediately in my own work, discovered some viable techniques, then volunteered my contributions, which include the book's introduction and another chapter dedicated to online competitive intelligence gathering.

The Internet provides Boomers with the most potent medium in history to effect change, nearby and far away. Social networks are no longer merely local and temporal but rather global and eternal. We have daily opportunities to influence hundreds, thousands or even millions with a single Tweet, Facebook post, or Linked-In update. One brilliant blog article can transform nations.

The power of these 21st century technologies became clearer to me when watching an extraordinary YouTube video entitled “Where the hell is Matt?” Matt Harding’s contemporary story reminds me of a younger version of me — full of adventure and idealism during college. Like many of us back then, he is a young iconoclast stubbornly intent on making the world better while having a blast doing it.

Matt traveled to 42 countries in 14 months to create a 4-minute, 30-second video showcasing his silly dance. Through the social network he enlisted thousands of strangers to silly-dance with him. Through YouTube he has attracted over 33 million viewers. That’s over 33 million impressions of an uplifting metaphor: a message underscoring we’re fundamentally all the same regardless of nation, race or culture. That’s a Boomer generation coming-of-age theme, flung into hyperspace with a social networking tool that didn’t exist before February 2005.

Boomers are no longer swarming college campuses where many staked their idealistic claims on the future. We’ve grown up and apart, geographically and mentally. Author David B. Wolfe has written about the inexorable influence of aging on adult psychological development. As we age we become more “individuated, introspective and autonomous.” Intrinsic connections to generational peers become misty and diffuse.

This has all begun to transform since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working for the European Particle Physics Laboratory. (Tim is a Boomer born on June 8, 1955 in London, England.) Burgeoning online social networks that have since emerged create new pathways into generational consciousness. The Internet allows legions to reach across geographic boundaries, to find like-minded contemporaries, and to discover universal life themes and passions.

Online social networks offer rich potential for connecting, learning, engaging, and changing the status quo, much as our colleges offered us in youth. The Internet creates the campus experience for us today, a mélange teaming with ideas, insights and camaraderie.

I submit that one critical “why” of building worldwide social networks is to come together, right now. Online and interconnected we can tackle challenges of shared concern: ageism; age discrimination in the workplace; third-age careers; availability of affordable healthcare; viability of social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare; and, ultimately, legacies of a generation, whether environmental, technological, or social. We can focus attention on public education for our grandchildren, or saner immigration policies, or more funding for research into “orphan diseases.” We can nurture vanishing art forms such as quilt making or angler’s fly tying. We can raise money to do all this.

It’s through our expanding online networks that we can debate the issues we once deliberated late-at-night in dorm rooms throughout the nation’s college campuses. We can find closeness with contemporaries we’ll never meet face-to-face. We can remain intimate and current with far-flung children and grandchildren and use the network to assure intergenerational transfer of our values. We can organize our thoughts and plan actions through distributed teams. We can link, tweet, and write articulate blog arguments to improve “collective mentalities” around the worth of elders.

We can even bring fame to new artists and thought revolutionaries of the generation, who often herald possibilities before change takes hold in mainstream beliefs and values. Susan Boyle showed us one way in 2009.

Susan, age 48, a church volunteer from lackluster Blackburn, Scotland, became an instant celebrity. The YouTube video of her shocking performance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” the UK version of “American Idol,” has received tens of millions of views. According to Visible Measures, a company that computes viewings of Internet videos, her catalog of online clips has been watched over 310 million times.

But trouncing Simon Cowell, the cynical talent judge, is not the end of this Boomer woman’s remarkable accomplishments. Her debut CD, “I Dreamed a Dream,” sold over 700,000 copies in the United States in one week, becoming the fastest-selling album in British history, soaring to the number one sales position in Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia. Susan has shattered any arguments that emerging musical talent belongs only to youth. In terms of sales, she smashed the best debut album of The Beatles.

We can still change the world with our creative gifts, making it better, fairer, more inclusive. We can use these networks to connect with many more peers than possible during our college years. We can live beyond our time, influencing social and political evolution long into the future. We can ensure that our forebears move closer to realizing our ideals of peaceful coexistence, a healthy planet … a world less dominated by human suffering.

Graham Nash, the British member of classic rock supergroup, Crosby, Stills & Nash, wrote a politically charged song about the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Regardless of the song’s original context, his lyrics ring true through decades:

Though your brother's bound and gaggedAnd they’ve chained him to a chairWon’t you please come to ChicagoJust to singIn a land that’s known as freedomHow can such a thing be fairWon't you please come to ChicagoFor the help we can bringWe can change the world –Re-arrange the world…

Today we share a world less dominated by traditional media, a world connected through fiber-optics and satellites, a world shrinking into desktop computer monitors and handheld smart phones displaying media channels born of this century: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Typepad, YouTube, Blogger — websites conceived to draw us together, to engage our passions, to affect how we see ourselves and believe in our possibilities.

And now, more than ever, we have a unique generational challenge to be the change, to re-engage with more mature purpose, to rearrange the world. We have the tools and freedom like we’ve never had them before. The rest is up to us.

Postscript:

Martin Diano is an accomplished practitioner of online social engagement and digital marketing. He founded and built Boomer Authority using most of the techniques and tricks described in the e-book. If you're a student of online marketing, then this teacher has come, commanding one of the most recognizable names in the industry due, in part, to intelligent implimentation of online social networking.

As Martin declares: Launched in April 2009, membership in Boomer Authority™ reached the 1,500 member plateau in November 2010, making it the largest and only global association of its kind, bringing together men and women from 23 countries and from every professional discipline serving and fulfilling the needs of the 50+ Baby Boomer and Senior demographic with a wide array of products and services. Membership is free to qualified professionals. To view other association activities, see a list of members and to join, click Join Boomer Authority™ Association.

Comments

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In 1993, Time magazine reported on the religious affiliations of baby boomers. Citing Wade Clark Roof, a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the articles stated that about 42% of baby boomers were dropouts from formal religion, a third had never strayed from church, and one-fourth of boomers were returning to religious practice. The boomers returning to religion were "usually less tied to tradition and less dependable as church members than the loyalists. They are also more liberal, which deepens rifts over issues like abortion and homosexuality.

Recent research points to Facebook as a primary online opportunity to reach Boomers through social networking. The fastest growing segment on Facebook has been Baby Boomer women. Women over 55 on Facebook grew by an astounding 175.3% between September 2008 and January 2009. My "walking around" research concludes that ALL social networking platforms are growing like gangbusters. This includes myriad Boomer-focused blogs and websites. LinkedIn has become a significant vehicle for professional networking. Daily I receive new followers on Twitter who are focusing on the Boomer/aging/retirement/personal reinvention markets: @BoomerMarketing. Thank you for your question and comments.

Brent and Martin, as an avid social networker and blogger, I am curious as to what you see to be the trend of Boomers becoming more and more comfortable and savvy with web 2.0. For example, where do you see most boomers gathering? Twitter? LinkedIn? Thanks for the excellent article.

Boomer Resources

Senior ForumsSenior Forums is a very active online community where the issues that interest Boomers are discussed, dissected, derided, defended, or downright denied in an aura of friendly chatter and banter among like-minded people.
Bring your sense of humor and join a laid-back, international forum of straight talkers who generously offer common sense to support those who need it and laugh with those who embrace the funny sides of aging.

Fierce with AgeCarol Orsborn, Ph.D., invites readers and followers of her blog to join her for what promises to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding next stage, similar in transformation to earlier chapters of life that the Boomer generation traversed and reinvented over the decades. A respected Boomer business authority and author of 19 books focused on spirituality, Carol trusts that through prayer, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, Boomers have the potential to fundamentally change their lives for the good, experiencing the aging process as “a potent mix of spiritual growth and personal empowerment.”

50plusboomerlife — Boomer life - travel - fashion - facts and more!This charming blog is written with purpose and passion by Kristine Drake, a native of Norway. I met Kristine at a magazine launch event in Stockholm, and we've remained in touch. Please keep in mind that this articulate and insightful blog is being written by someone who uses English as her second language. You'd never know it unless I told you so. Norway is a magical country, so Kristine's European perspective about life after 50 enriches us all.

Fifty Is The New FortySince 2007, FiftyIsTheNewForty.com has been a dynamic, trendy go-to destination for savvy and successful 50-something women. Interviews with prominent Boomers, articles, guest blogs and reviews. Fun, funny, informative, and relevant.

Mark Miller's "Hard Times Retirement" Mark Miller, author of "The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security," is a journalist, author and editor who writes about trends in retirement and aging. He has a special focus on how the Boomer generation is revising its approach to careers, money and lifestyles after age 50.
Mark edits and publishes RetirementRevised.com, featured as one of the best retirement planning sites on the web in the May 2010 issue of "Money" Magazine. He also writes Retire Smart, a syndicated weekly newspaper column and also contributes weekly to Reuters.com.

David Cravit's blogDavid Cravit is a Vice President at ZoomerMedia Ltd. and has over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in both Canada and the US. His book "The New Old" (October, 2008, ECW Press and recommended here) details how the Baby Boomers are completely reinventing the process of aging – and the implications for companies, government, and society as a whole.

Silver - Boomer Marketing in Asia PacificThe only strategic business and marketing consultancy focused on 50+ in Asia Pacific, SILVER is helping companies leverage the opportunities presented by the rapidly rising population of ageing consumers throughout Asia Pacific. Founder and CEO Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in APAC, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Silver can INFORM with unique research, data and insight reports into the senior market. ADVISE to help companies increase understanding through audit of their ageing-readiness, strategic workshops, training and executive briefings. CONNECT business to the senior market through refined brand positioning plus relevant and targeted communications strategies.

VibrantNation.comVibrantNation.com is the online destination for women 50+, a peer-to-peer information exchange and a place to join in smart conversation with one another. “Inside the Nation” is Vibrant Nation Senior Strategist Carol Orsborn's on-site blog on marketing to the upscale 50+ woman. Carol, co-author of “Boom,” as well as 15 books for and about Boomers, shares her informed opinions from the heart of the demographic.

Entitled to KnowBoomers better get ready for a deluge of propaganda about why Social Security and Medicare should not be secure and why these programs must be diminished and privatized. This award-winning blog, sponsored by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides an in-depth resource of breaking news and cogent analysis. You've been paying for these programs since inception of your career; now it's time to learn how as individuals and collectively we can preserve them for all generations.

Time Goes ByThis is the definitive blog to understand what is happening to a generation as it ages. Intelligent. Passionate. Humanistic.

Route 50PlusProduced by the Dutch organization Route 50Plus, this website brings news, knowledge, and information about the fifty-plus population. The Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. Partners of Route 50Plus include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.

Dr. Bill ThomasUnder the leadership of Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org seeks to elevate elders and elderhood in our society by taking-to-task the media, government and other interest groups who perpetuate a declinist view of aging.

Serene AmbitionSerene Ambition is about what Boomers can do, and more importantly, who Boomers can be as they grow older. Blogger Jim Selman is committed to creating a new interpretation or paradigm for the second half of life

The Boomer ChroniclesThe Boomer Chronicles, an irreverent blog for baby boomers and others, is updated every Monday through Friday, usually several times daily.
Host Rhea is a Boston-based journalist and a Gemini who grew up in a small town in New Jersey. She has written for People magazine and The Boston Globe. She was also managing editor of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Gazette. She wrote the “Jamaica Plain (Boston)” chapter of the book WalkBoston (2003; Appalachian Mountain Club) and started a popular series of Jamaica Plain walking tours in 1996.

LifeTwoLifeTwo is a community-driven life planning and support site for adults who have recognized the speed at which days are passing by. This often begins to happen in-between the mid-30s and the mid-50s. Sometimes this recognition is triggered by a divorce, career change, personal loss or some other significant event and sometimes it is just the calendar hitting 35 or 40. The hosts' goal is to take what otherwise might become a midlife "crisis" and turn it into a positive midlife transition.

BoomerCafé.comBoomerCafé is the only ezine that focuses on the active, youthful lifestyles that boomers pursue. Instead of a brand new edition every week or every month, BoomerCafé is changing all the time, which means there’s often something new to read each time you go online at www.boomercafe.com.

Jean-Paul TréguerJean-Paul Tréguer is the author of "50+ Marketing" and founder of Senioragency International, the first and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to Boomers 50+ and senior consumers.

Dick StroudGenerational and 50+ marketing is taking off in Europe, with no small thanks to the author of newly published "The 50+ Market."

David WolfeRespected widely for his thought-leading book, "Ageless Marketing," the late David Wolfe established an international reputation for his insights, intellect and original thoughts about the future of aging. This blog carries on ageless marketing traditions in honor of David.

Matt ThornhillBoomer pundit Matt Thornhill has taken new ground with his path-breaking Boomer research. When you need fresh Boomer insights, contact Matt for original research, both online and focus group.

Chuck NyrenChuck Nyren, author of "Advertising to Baby Boomers," is a seasoned creative director and copywriter with talent to match. Ad agencies absolutely need his counsel about any of their clients planning to target Boomers.